


Pull The Trigger

by plastic_cello



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Suicidal Thoughts, World War II, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastic_cello/pseuds/plastic_cello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Staring at Steve like this made Bucky homesick. He missed what they had; he missed being the one person who had seen Steve's worth, and who could elevate him like no one else could. Selfish as it may be, Bucky wanted Steve to himself again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull The Trigger

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on a whim.

* * *

 

 

The smell of a campfire and winter hung depressingly in the air. Bucky stared into the vast whiteness of the newly fallen snow, and smiled grimly into the nothingness of the Austrian forestland. They had been marching through the wilderness for days now; an unstoppable force with destruction collectively on their mind.

They had been hunting down any HYDRA operative that they could find. They had uncovered plenty of bases hidden in barren villages and war torn cities, and yet they hardly seemed to have made a dent in the enemy's ranks. It felt like an endless battle that they couldn't possibly win. But Bucky was wise enough to keep his pessimism to himself.

Morale was at an all-time low. The men tried to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to believe the rousing speech of their captain. Time, however, had worn away the vigorous righteousness that they once had. Fight after fight proved too much, especially when HYDRA continued to regroup in larger quantities with weaponry beyond their comprehension.

Admittedly, Bucky hadn't held any true optimism in a very long time. Basic might have been the last time he had recognized his potential for good. He had wanted to serve his country against the enemy. He wanted to be a hero. But things hadn't gone exactly as he had hoped they would.

Any hope for valiancy had been lost; abandoned like a childhood toy in an attic, once he'd been taken prisoner by HYDRA. His carefree attitude, his sense of innocence had been stripped to the bone and remained in the burned out remains of that factory hundreds of miles away; never to be seen again.

Things had changed; he had changed too. He could hardly believe what he once was. He used to be a well-beloved guy in the neighborhood. Old ladies found him troublesome but offensively charming, and the dames flocked to him like bees to honey. He had a charm to him; a natural born gift for gab and dance. He had been something; he had been somebody.

In retrospect, maybe he hadn't been anyone. All those characteristics were so damn shallow that it made him sick. Who cared if he was a snappy dresser or had a silver tongue? Did that mean anything in the long run? Did that even make him special or was he just a cheap trick?

The resounding answer was that he was a joke. He might have been a somebody on a Brooklyn street corner, but his existence was expendable. And he especially meant nothing on a continent stained in blood and sacrifice. Here, he was nothing but a scared little boy without a sense of meaning beyond putting one foot in front of the other just so he could follow his best pal into battle.

Now that was a thought for the ages. Who would have thought sickly 'ol Steve Rogers would become a wartime hero? Not that asthmatic, artistic kid who almost died from rheumatic fever when he was nineteen. Not the one who had two left feet, who had to squint to read the paper, and lean too closely to the radio to hear every word of Fibber McGee and Molly because his hearing was shit.

Bucky had thought he'd left Steve for good in Brooklyn. He hadn't been delusional enough to think his chances of survival were higher than anyone else's. In the early hours before he boarded a ship across the Atlantic, Bucky had wandered the deserted streets of his old neighborhood and tried to impress every crack in the sidewalk and every alley into his memory.

Steve hadn't known that and he still didn't. Bucky had told him that he'd gotten a proper send-off by Connie, but he had insisted her virtue had remained intact which wasn't a lie. No matter his gritty reputation, he didn't sully a dame if he could help it. Not good Catholic or Protestant dames, who were starry-eyed and love hungry; he knew better. His Ma raised him better than that.

The thing was that Steve didn't know that, though. He didn't need to know how sullen and jaded he'd become; had been for a while now. He didn't need to know how sometimes his skin felt too restrictive and how something tortured howled in the pit of his stomach. He didn't need to know about the nightmares or the instinct that something was just  _wrong_.

Steve had a unit to lead into the jaws of death. He had a goal in mind. And he had a dame with prettily painted red lips waiting for him on base. God only knew that took up a guy's time, which made the whole damn concept of friendship laughable at times.

Blindly, Bucky slipped his hand into his coat and found a half-smoked and crooked cigarette in one of his inner pockets. A pack of matches was also fished out, and with deft hands he lit the cherry; while his arm curled protectively around his rifle that he'd taken on watch.

It was his last cigarette and he wanted it to last as long as possible. But addiction was a funny thing. Even when he was too scared to sleep, and the worry of an enemy attack sat like an elephant on his shoulders; he still needed a cigarette one way or another. Nothing took his mind off of it for too long. He even remembered wanting one while being tortured by that bug-eyed Nazi creep.

Once his cigarette was clamped firmly between his teeth, Bucky took his rifle in both hands and shifted on the cold rock that he perched himself on nearly two hours earlier. Somewhere close-by was Falsworth, who'd been assigned to the same watch as him.

Falsworth was one of the few optimists still. He and Steve anyway; even Dum Dum was losing his boisterous way about him of late. The cold had dampened his mood, apparently. Somehow none of the other Commandos seemed particularly affected by their time in HYDRA captivity. Or at least outwardly there weren't; maybe they were all good actors with god fearing faith.

War was a funny thing. Death was a commodity. Weakness wasn't an option. You just had to buck up and try to survive. It was something Bucky was finding harder and harder to do, and for so many reasons too.

The wrongness that he felt ever since his rescue only seemed to grow. He felt on the verge of an implosion; he felt like something alien was living inside of him, and it was feeding off of his organs until it eventually ate him alive. But not only that, there was Steve and that proved to be the worst part of all.

This new Steve was terrifying to Bucky in many ways. Sometimes he felt like a stranger, who'd been superimposed on his childhood friend. This Steve spoke with authority and bravery, and heralded hope in most. He was a natural born leader with a flawless handle on his body. This Steve was more Captain America than the runty kid of Brooklyn that Bucky befriended so many years ago.

There was a disconnect between them; a small fracture that Steve probably didn't even see. Because he had always been dense in his own way; Steve had always been smart, but he really couldn't see what was right in front of his stupid face. After all, how else could he have been completely oblivious to the way Bucky felt about him since they were thirteen years old?

It was worse now; so much worse. Back in Brooklyn, Bucky found his distractions in dames at the dance halls and at the diner on the corner. He could find Steve dates and pretend like he was normal, as opposed to the sick queer that he was. He could pretend that he wasn't secretly pleased when every date of Steve's fell to the wayside; he could pretend to be sympathetic and understanding when in all actuality he was so damn happy that no one wanted Steve but him.

With Steve looking more like an Adonis than a pipsqueak, of course the dames couldn't help but fawn over him. Every city, every village there was one or two that forgotten about their war torn home long enough to try and gain Captain America's attention. They tried, oh did they ever, but Steve was a faithful man and only had eyes for Agent Carter.

Agent Carter had eyes for Steve too. Everyone knew they were sweet on each other. They hardly hid it from anyone. Or else maybe they were just piss poor at bottling up their emotions for one another. Which was precisely why Bucky was out here on this damn rock in first place; he couldn't handle watching Steve sketch the swell of Agent Carter's bosom or the sweet ribbon of her mouth anymore. He couldn't listen to another story about how wonderful she was.

"I thought I smelled smoke; the good kind." Falsworth appeared on the edge of Bucky's peripheral with a similar rifle to his in his gloved hands.

"Don't have another," Bucky grumbled.

"The smell's enough for me." Falsworth said pleasantly enough.

Rather than try and prolong the conversation, Bucky continued to stare ahead of him. Before long he had puffed away the remnants of his cigarette, which only made his internal dialogue seem a whole lot bleaker. He had absolutely nothing here, beyond the promise of death.

Sometimes he figured it would be for the best to die here. He couldn't go back to Brooklyn and live the life he had left behind. How could anyone do that? How could anyone come back from war without the muscle memory of combat at the forefront of their mind? But more importantly, how could he survive when he knew Steve was bound to propose to Agent Carter?

It really wouldn't be bad to walk into enemy fire. He'd probably be dead before he knew it; so long as they didn't try and take him alive. If they put a bullet in his head, well that wouldn't be half-bad. It wouldn't be that yellow-bellied of him.

"Falsworth," he heard himself say, although he hadn't meant to. It was that disconnect between mind and body that he frequently felt again.

Falsworth hummed in acknowledgement, a shadowy figure still on the edge of his peripheral. Quite frankly, Bucky didn't know what he wanted to say. Maybe he wanted some reassurance in that moment to know he wasn't alone, even if he intellectually knew he wasn't.

The camp was only twenty feet away; the distant sound of laughter was still audible. But Bucky never felt more alone or isolated in his whole life. He never felt like a stranger in his own body before. He never felt farther away from Steve as he did right now.

"Have you ever been in love? Is there a dame back home waiting for you?" He asked easily enough, even though his stomach was in knots.

"There very well might be one,"

"Marriage material,"

"I'd say so." Falsworth let out a jaunty laugh. "Why Barnes, do you have a lady at home?"

"No," Bucky ran a hand through his hair; it was greasy and unwashed but so was the rest of him.

"She'll come 'round; once you come back from war."

"That's not it." He smiled grimly and felt his heart seize up in his chest, as if it was finally breaking after all the stress he'd been through of late.

He told no one about how he felt. Falsworth seemed like a poor choice to bear his soul to, since they weren't as chummy with one another as Falsworth was with Dernier or Gabe or even Dum Dum. If anything, Bucky had isolated himself from everyone but Steve especially. Steve hadn't noticed or honestly cared or so it seemed.

"I'm in love with someone, though." Bucky spit out with a laugh. "Like this soul crushing kind of love that's eating me alive. Sometimes I can't even breathe; I can't even think."

_It's killing me; he's killing me._

The thought was left unsaid; a horribly macabre realization that would never find its way into the Austrian winter. And the hurt was real; suddenly so overwhelming that it brought hot tears to his eyes and threatened to turn the glum snow into slosh and rain instead.

Bucky desperately wanted a cigarette at that moment. He wanted to climb out the window of the dingy little apartment he shared with Steve, and smoke on the rusty fire escape with the sounds of the city all around him. At least there he could pretend to be normal still. He wasn't completely broken back then.

Falsworth moved in front of him, and for one delusional moment he thought he might shoot him. Maybe he had confessed out loud that he was a queer, lusting over their captain who would be equally disgusted by the revelation as everyone would be. Hell, it would probably be for the best to put him out of his misery like a dog.

"Barnes," Falsworth knelt in front of him. "You will survive this; we all will. You will live to see your home again, and you will tell your loved one how you feel. You've survived worse, unimaginable travesties, and you will survive this. The captain will make sure of that,"

There was so much optimism in what Falsworth said. He even believed that they would come out on the other end unscathed. But the reality was that Bucky was beyond helping now. He would never be the same again; none of them would. The only difference between them and him was that Zola had done something without a name to him, and the damage was beyond reversal.

Steve had done something to him too. He had abandoned him; left him for the wolves to have, and it felt crueler than being cut open and bled out like a pig. Because Steve had so stupidly gone along with a harebrained idea to become the perfect soldier when he'd been the perfect human being from the get-go. How selfish on both their parts.

Bucky opened his mouth to reply, but whatever thread of thought he had had been lost. The crunch of snow had both him and Falsworth on their feet with their weapons at the ready. But they soon discovered the sound was coming from their backs, and revealed itself in way of broad shoulders and red, white, and blue.

Captain America himself had wound his way through the barren trees; dirty like the rest of them. Soot and old blood caked one of his cheeks and his hair hung low on his forehead from a lack of a decent washing. God only knew when any of them last bathed; Bucky thought it was well over a week ago if not longer.

"At ease, soldiers," Steve held up his hands, as he noticed their guns pointed at him. "The enemy would be coming that way not this one."

The good-natured ribbing faded abruptly as it had begun; Steve looked concerned and within two easy steps he was in front of Bucky, who had lowered his rifle automatically. Steve's close proximity was almost too much for his senses to take in; he smelled of firewood, cold, and old sweat and his body heat was enough to remind him of the rackety old furnace in their old apartment.

Staring at Steve like this made Bucky homesick. He missed what they had; he missed being the one person who had seen Steve's worth, and who could elevate him like no one else could. Selfish as it may be, Bucky wanted Steve to himself again.

"What's wrong, Bucky?"

"What are you going on about?" He heard himself say after Steve vocalized his concern. "I'm freezing half to death out here. My eyes are going funny from staring at the snow. What do you think is wrong?"

_I'm dying inside. Something's eating away at my innards. But you're killing me even more than they could, Stevie. I'm dying and you don't even notice. I'm never going back to Brooklyn again. Pull the trigger already, put me out of my goddamn misery._

None of those words left his lips, though. They remained firmly cemented in that deep, dark, and dank place inside of him; a tomb for his most human of parts. HYDRA had shattered most of them, in exception for that horrible yearning for his best friend.

"Falsworth, I'll take your watch from here."

"But Captain-"

"One hour more won't hurt me any." Steve looked away from Bucky, and shot Falsworth a stern no-nonsense look that had their comrade heading for the tree line almost immediately.

Bucky watched Falsworth retreat over Captain America's shoulder until the dead trees clustered so close together that he could no longer be seen. That's when his gaze diverted back to the formidable figure in front of him. How could have Steve been so small and sickly before? Had all his memories been a dream?

"What's with the ugly face, Rogers?" He turned away to face the snow again. "Couldn't stand to be away from me for a whole watch?"

"Bucky, knock it off already."

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Something's eating you," Steve said and Bucky could almost picture the tiny guy from back home instead of the hulking form that was really there. "What happened to you all those months ago?"

Flashes of unformed pictures shot off in Bucky's head. He remembered pain and agony and sharp scalpels and the tinny tiny voice of that morbid fuck Zola. He remembered acid in his veins and a weird expansion in his chest, and he remembered Steve with charcoal stained fingers and ill-fitting clothes and his tougher than nails personality. But more importantly, he remembered how much he hated himself for not telling Steve how much he loved him.

"War's a frigid bitch." He laughed. "But you wanted this, Stevie. Is it all you had hoped for; the shit and the piss and the blood and the decay? Are you happy now?"

"Bucky-"

"Hey, this is all you ever wanted. You get to be a hero; you got a dame prettier than the dogs back at home. Ain't anyone ever going to say what a fairy Captain America is now,"

"Knock it off, Bucky. I'm being serious."

"Yeah, well I am too!" Bucky turned around to stare at this goddamn stranger. "The world's your oyster, Cap! We're fighting the good fight! God bless America!"

Fury flashed temporarily across Steve's face, before it disappeared just as quickly. That seemed to have prompted an end to the conversation because Steve stalked the way Falsworth had originally come from. He was weaponless, but he could probably kill a dozen Nazis with his hands alone so it didn't really matter. He'd be safe.

The silence that followed Steve's departure hung heavily over Bucky's head. He clutched his rifle tightly and thought about blowing his brains out. It would be a relief, really. But that was the coward way to go and he wouldn't give anyone that satisfaction.

Dying from a broken heart at least had some kind of poetic justice to it. Too bad no one would ever know about the dirty queer sniper of the Howling Commandos. He would die an unremarkable death, probably freeze to death and no one would be any the wiser. His family's reputation would remain intact.

All the dames of greater Brooklyn would flock to his funeral; the old ladies too. They'd remember him fondly, unaware of the twisted fuck he really was. Steve might cry too with Agent Carter by his side.

"The star spangled man with a plan," he sang obnoxiously loud so Steve could hear, even as the hot burn of shame and loss filled him up.

Without his permission, several tears slid down his wind-beaten cheeks and that feeling of wrongness kept growing inside of him. He was infected with something dark and heavy, but it felt almost light in comparison to the horrible jealousy and yearning that knotted his insides like a ribbon.

It would be over soon; one way or another he would be done for. Maybe he'd still be alive when the dust settled and the enemy surrounded, but something crucial died in him on that steel table in that factory. He lost everything. He lost everything that counted. And Steve unwittingly pulled the trigger.

The star spangled man with a plan, boy you betcha.


End file.
